Alien: Romulus

I didn't expect a groundbreaking film from Fede Alvarez that would push the boundaries of the genre and elevate the Alien theme to a new level. However, I secretly hoped he could rely on solid craftsmanship and create a functional genre film that would pay homage to the original series and overcome the bitter taste left by Ridley Scott's ambitious yet unfortunate attempts. With several reservations, I believe that as a summer genre flick meant for entertainment, Alvarez's work holds up. His approach clearly targets a young audience that drives movie theater attendance, and this is reflected in his choice of characters. The actors certainly don't perform poorly, but their characters are bland, and the chemistry between them is lacking. Alvarez doesn't attempt to bring an original auteur style, but instead continually winks at the series' fans, trying to evoke everything that once worked on screen. He successfully builds horror tension, particularly during the phase where a group of desperate individuals infiltrates an abandoned base, navigating through debris and exploring the unknown spaces of a giant wreck. However, since Alvarez is making a film for teenagers, he needs to accelerate the plot, even at the expense of basic logic and the legacy of the first installment. Facehuggers gain the speed of a racing motorcycle, and a human mutant transforms from a newborn into a giant creature within two minutes. Nevertheless, as an adventurous action sci-fi with good production design, the film reliably works. If I were to measure the film by the standards I apply to smart, top-tier productions, my rating would drop. But for what Romulus aims to be, it fulfills its purpose. Since my initial expectations were low and, not least, because film fans have very few reasons to visit the movie theater nowadays, I raise my final verdict to four stars and a 70% overall impression. (08/19/2024)

A pop horror flick that appeals to Generation Z and won't offend the oldies. On the positive side, I'll take the superb and highly talented Cailee Spaeny and the fantastic last half hour, and on the negative side, the simple fact that the other teens are all interchangeable, I didn't find my way to them at all and didn't care if the monster made a sandwich out of them. Yes, it's nice to look at, it has the hallmark of the 70s technique Ridley Scott established in his masterpiece, the atmosphere is nicely depressing and claustrophobic, but for the first two-thirds the film painfully lacks in any kind of tension, because apart from Cailee I - as I've already written - hadn't built up any rapport with the characters and consequently didn't experience the threat of the facehuggers as such at all. Fortunately, there are enough references and allusions to previous episodes, and as a connoisseur I appreciate how "disjointed" it is in that respect: the first third is slowburn old Alien, the second the warlike Aliens, and the last one is a return to the first one, with Fede Álvarez literally quoting it. So yeah, I actually had a decent time, and since Álvarez unloaded a few scenes I hadn’t seen in this genre before, I give the film four spits of acid. (08/19/2024)

Fede Álvarez, director of the best Evil Dead and Don't Breathe, one of the best original modern genre films, delivers for the third time (I’m ignoring the existence of The Girl in the Spider's Web). But flawless perfection it is not this time. He does well what he does best: offering an intense horror ride full of attractions that slowly makes it impossible to breathe. But what I have the biggest problem with regarding the new Alien is time and space. Once it gets going, it feels insanely fast-paced. For one thing, the development of the monsters is absurdly fast, and for another, I would have liked the human characters to have time to pause for a moment and let it sink in how much shit they've got themselves into. And the space, I found the action awkwardly cut at times in terms of orientation. Especially the elevator scene and its ending I didn't get at all, maybe a chunk of the film had to be missing there (?). The much criticised fanservice didn't bother me, or rather I didn't pay much attention to it and it didn't actively distract me – though I have the "advantage" in this that I very rarely watch films repeatedly, so I certainly don't know any of the Alien movies by heart and can't quote from them. I found all but one moment (at the end of the aforementioned elevator scene) unworthy. The criticised digicam is totally fine, I really don’t know what the problem is, it looks completely appropriate given the state "it" is in right now. The final ten minutes are easily the best part of the film; and the main pair of characters realistically have a lot more charisma than anyone who came after Ripley in the franchise. 8/10 (08/16/2024)

I must say that I feel a little disappointed. I had hight expectations for Alien: Romulus, as it was expected to be the horror film of the year and the experienced Fede Álvarez with his spectacular trailers had a promising start, but unfortunately it didn't deliver. Admittedly, if I let go of expectations, this is solid sci-fi horror, the likes of which hasn't been around for a while, with some very impressive elements. But there were a few things that bothered me. The actors didn't wow me all that much, David Jonsson as the Android is the most interesting character, but the vaunted Cailee Spaeny didn't grab my heart. The opening is quite slow and by the time the Alien appears half the film is gone. Audiovisually it's great, the ship looks awesome and the music is also very effective, the cramped atmosphere is good and the gravity/acid scene is a highlight for me. The final monster was a bit over the top for me, though, I could have done without it and the Alien was perfectly fine. But what I see as the biggest problem and disappointment is that we get almost no gore. Álvarez made one of the most brutal horror remakes with Evil Dead, so I was expecting a proper Alien carnage, but the body-count is too low for that and most of the deaths are out of frame or simply don't stick in the memory. I didn’t expect Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant to have twice the carnage of Alvarez. Even compared to Prey, Alien: Romulus falls far short. That I would leave the cinema feeling that seeing it once was enough is something I really didn't hope for. Four stars it deserves without a doubt, but the expectations were simply elsewhere. 7/10. (08/19/2024)

I have another piece for my collection of Andy's slow-circuit films. You know what they should call the stepbrother Rain? Rain Man. The concept feels schizophrenic, just like an android whose control chip keeps switching back and forth. Set between the first and second installments, Fede Alvarez wanted to cover everything up to Covenant, but at the same time, he didn’t want to suppress his own talent. The result? A generic installment that just tortures the franchise further. Similarly, Benjamin Wallfisch's music, which borrows from Goldsmith and Horner, suddenly slams in something akin to a romantic ballad. Everything clashes horribly, and I don’t just mean the new Vasquez with an endless magazine, but rather the attempt to please everyone, including the corporate producers. This is partly explained by the fact that while the average age of the crew on the Nostromo was 39.7 years, here it’s 24.4. A junior with a PC game face and a body drenched in 33% cream, naturally, doesn’t fit into the statistics. (08/21/2024)